Examine the guidelines of the Shariah considering the use of force

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Jo Batty

1a) Examine the guidelines of the Shariah considering the use of force (20marks)

The Shariah is the Islamic Law for Muslims; the word Shariah means a clear straight path, the way in which God wants men to walk.  It gives all the basic rules and regulations as to how human beings should live and act in political, economic, social and collective individual spheres.

The Shariah was compiled using the Qur’an, the Sunnah and the Hadith.  The Qur’an is the word of God and tells Muslims everything on how to live their life but as Muslims scholars tried to work out how to live their lives they discovered that the Qur’an didn’t cover some areas and so therefore they looked to the Sunnah and the Hadith.  The Sunnah is the life example of the Prophet Mohammad and the Hadith are the sayings of Mohammad, these where looked at because Mohammad was the seal of the Prophets and so what he did must be the final example of how a perfect human being should live.

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If it didn’t have the answers in the Qur’an, Sunnah or Hadith then the Shariah would use Qiyas (analogy), Ijma (consensus) and Ijtihad (personal reasoning) to help make the final decision.

The Qur’an holds a position of absolute authority within the Islamic society and it is the most accurate account of Allah’s will.  The Qur’an suggests that force is part of the divine plan and that victory is granted only by God, for example, after the battle of Bad’r Mohammad received a revelation “ It was not ye who slew them; it was God” (Surah 8:17).  

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